Morristown nun crusades to canonize controversial pope

Nearly 20 portraits of Pope Pius XII line the walls of the spacious Morristown office of Sister Margherita Marchione, and dozens of smaller likenesses fill shelves. There are also a pair of his shoes, his white zucchetto (or skullcap), and a gold reliquary containing two handkerchiefs and a strand of his hair.

Aristide Economopolous/The Star-LedgerSister Margherita Marchione is a staunch defender of the controversial Pope Pius XII, who led the Catholic church during the Holocaust. Jewish groups claim he didn't do enough to help Jews.

It is a veritable shrine built by Sister Margherita, 88, who became a vocal proponent of sainthood for Pius after learning in 1995 that her order in Rome had saved 114 Jews from the Nazis. She has since written nine books in support of Pius and is working on a 10th.

Hers is a controversial cause. The extent to which Pius, pope during the Holocaust, helped or did not help Jews during those years is a question that has divided historians and other church observers.

Pius’ critics — Jewish and Catholic — believe his canonization would venerate a leader who, they contend, failed to do everything he could to help Jews during the Holocaust. They say the pope failed to directly confront anti-Semitism.

His supporters — Catholic and Jewish — contend that he did act, behind the scenes, to save Jews, and that wartime realities prevented large-scale public action. They also say Jewish critics should not be advising Catholics on whom to revere as saints.

The issue, a bump in Catholic-Jewish relations, resurfaced last month when Pope Benedict XVI formally declared Pius "venerable," an important step in the canonization process. When Benedict visited the Great Synagogue of Rome last Sunday, one Italian Jewish group boycotted the visit over the issue, and the president of Rome’s Jewish community, who did attend, said the church did not do enough to help Jews during the war.

But the pope’s decision to move forward on Pius thrilled Sister Margherita, who sent thank-you letters to the Vatican.

"That was a wonderful feeling for me," she said last week about Benedict’s decision. "I feel I dedicated 15 years of my life to the topic, and to see it reach the conclusion that I felt it should reach, it makes me very happy."

POLARIZING ISSUE

A retired Italian language and literature professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Sister Margherita stepped squarely into the debate in 1995 in favor of Pius, whom she had met once in 1957, a year before he died.

Her books promoting Pius won her a papal medal in 2003 and made her a celebrity in some conservative Catholic circles and a favorite of the monthly magazine Inside the Vatican.

Critics have called her an apologist who would rush the sainthood process rather than wait for the release of post-1939 documents in Vatican archives for scholarly review.

Sister Margherita’s is among many loud voices from both sides of the decades-long debate over Pius’ role in the war. Others have included John Cornwell, a British journalist who in 1999 published a book titled "Hitler’s Pope." Cornwell has since toned down his criticism of Pius.

"There have been excesses on both sides of the discussion," said Monsignor Robert Wister, church historian at Seton Hall University. "This is an extremely sensitive issue, and extremely emotional on both sides of the question, and unfortunately, as the years has passed, both sides of the question have made statements that have resulted in further inflaming the issues."

While historians agree that convents and monasteries in Rome sheltered thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, they say questions remain about whether Pius ordered this. Though there is no known documentation. Sister Margherita says it is logical to conclude he did. She said the cloistered convents would not have opened themselves up to outsiders otherwise.

"I chose to defend Pius XII because I’m totally convinced that he did everything possible," she said. "He was what you call a virtuous man, a saintly man."

Their brief meeting occurred in Vatican City. Sister Margherita had gained access through Pius’ niece, who had visited the Morristown convent.

"It was a general audience," Sister Margherita recalled. "We were in the front row. He came over because he recognized his niece. I remember holding his hands, chatting with him. He asked me what I was doing."

"That meeting with him is something so personal, you know, that it does give me the incentive that I can’t stop now, I have to finish my job. And I can’t die now until I finish the job."

Her career has included a Ph.D. from Columbia University and 20 years as a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson. She also researched the life of Philip Mazzei, an Italian-born friend of Thomas Jefferson. She was inducted into the N.J. Literary Hall of Fame in 1993 and won a lifetime achievement award last year from the Catholic Education Foundation.

CHALLENGING CRITICS

For her first book on Pius, "Yours is a Precious Witness," Margherita interviewed Jews who hid in convents and monasteries in Rome during the war. In her seventh, "Did Pope Pius XII Help The Jews?" she wrote that the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Israel, known as Yad Vashem, should give Pius its highest honor and remove statements in its museum, under his picture, that she says portray him unfairly.

She also questioned the motives of Pius’ critics.

"Destroying Pius’s reputation," she wrote, "is only a means to an end: destroying the papacy and the church as we know it. By denigrating Pius XII ... some writers are contributing to the goal of many confused Catholics — changing the church into a social institution."

Some of her opponents, she says, are bitter. She mentioned Abraham Foxman, executive director of the Jewish organization the Anti-Defamation League, who lives in Bergen County.

"I feel sorry for them," she said, "because they’re so unhappy over it, when they should be rejoicing that the good someone does is being recognized by the world."

Foxman, who has repeatedly lobbied the Vatican to let scholars review the archives sooner rather than later, said Sister Margherita has jumped to conclusions about Pius.

"She’s already made up her mind that Pius is a saint, so there’s nothing else to do but beatify him," he said. "There’s no reason to rush the judgment. They’ve waited hundreds of years to beatify saints. Why is there a rush before the archives are open, and survivors are still alive?"

After last month’s announcement on Pius, the Vatican press office addressed Jewish critics in a statement stressing that the decision involved an evaluation of his "Christian life" and "not the historical impact of all his operative decisions."

Even if a thorough review of yet-unavailable documents in Vatican archives revealed anything negative about Pius, Sister Margherita said her opinions about his sainthood cause would not change. What he did to help Rome’s Jews was enough, she said.